Apple Unveils Discounted iMac Deal

Apple has unveiled an offer
for educational institutions on its US website giving them the chance to get their hands on an iMac
for just $999 (£610) – but you'll get a lot less Mac for your money and it's only available in the US so far.

Apple is offering the stripped-back version of its 21.5in iMac to educational institutes for a lower price than
a regular, entry-level iMac but the with the price cuts, come quite a few
compromises. Separately, the Apple Higher Education store still offers a fully-featured 21.5in iMac for the discounted price of £880 to third-level students and educators.

When Apple refreshed the iMac line up in May an entry level 21.5in model set you back
£999. A similar-looking model has now appeared on the US website for just $999 but is only available to educational institutions and is missing some major features.

The new model
comes with dual-core Core i3 running at 3.1GHz compared to a
quad-core Core i5, 2GB of RAM compared to 4GB, 250GB HDD compared to 500GB and 256MB
of VRAM compared to 512MB.

The offer does
come with a wireless keyboard including numeric keypad and a mouse, but you don’t
get the choice of a free trackpad. Oh, and there’s no Thunderbolt port either –
and while this may not worry many universities and colleges at the moment, it could affect its resale
value in a few years when Thunderbolt could be a lot more widespread.

We are waiting to hear back from Apple regarding the availability of the offer in the UK, but for now the offer seems to be open to American institutions only.